Preface

This guide describes how to use the Digital Imaging and Communications in Medicine (DICOM) feature of Oracle Multimedia, which ships with Oracle Database.

In Oracle Database 11g Release 1 (11.1), the name Oracle interMedia was changed to Oracle Multimedia. The feature remains the same, only the name has changed. References to Oracle interMedia were replaced with Oracle Multimedia although, some references to Oracle interMedia or interMedia might still appear in graphical user interfaces, code examples, and related documents in the Documentation Library for Oracle Database 11g Release 2 (11.2).

This information in this guide is organized as follows:

Title Contents
Part I, "DICOM Common Usage and Reference" Introductory, conceptual, user, and reference information, which is common to administrators and developers of DICOM applications
Part II, "DICOM Development Usage and Reference" User and reference information for developers of DICOM applications
Part III, "DICOM Administration Usage and Reference" User and reference information for administrators of the DICOM data model repository
Part IV, "DICOM Appendixes" Supplementary information about Oracle Multimedia DICOM

The sample code in this guide might not match the code shipped with Oracle Database Examples media. To run examples that are shipped with Oracle Database Examples media on your system, use the files provided with Oracle Database Examples media. Do not attempt to compile and run the code in this guide.

For information about Oracle Database and the features and options that are available to you, see Oracle Database New Features Guide.

Audience

This guide is for application developers and administrators who are interested in storing, retrieving, and manipulating DICOM format medical images and other objects in a database.

Documentation Accessibility

Our goal is to make Oracle products, services, and supporting documentation accessible to all users, including users that are disabled. To that end, our documentation includes features that make information available to users of assistive technology. This documentation is available in HTML format, and contains markup to facilitate access by the disabled community. Accessibility standards will continue to evolve over time, and Oracle is actively engaged with other market-leading technology vendors to address technical obstacles so that our documentation can be accessible to all of our customers. For more information, visit the Oracle Accessibility Program Web site at http://www.oracle.com/accessibility/.

Accessibility of Code Examples in Documentation

Screen readers may not always correctly read the code examples in this document. The conventions for writing code require that closing braces should appear on an otherwise empty line; however, some screen readers may not always read a line of text that consists solely of a bracket or brace.

Accessibility of Links to External Web Sites in Documentation

This documentation may contain links to Web sites of other companies or organizations that Oracle does not own or control. Oracle neither evaluates nor makes any representations regarding the accessibility of these Web sites.

Access to Oracle Support

Oracle customers have access to electronic support through My Oracle Support. For information, visit http://www.oracle.com/support/contact.html or visit http://www.oracle.com/accessibility/support.html if you are hearing impaired.

Related Documents

Note:

For information added after the release of this guide, see the online README.txt file under your <ORACLE_HOME> directory. Depending on your operating system, this file may be in

<ORACLE_HOME>/ord/im/admin/README.txt

See your operating system-specific installation guide for more information.

For more information about using Oracle Multimedia in a development environment, see the following documents in the Oracle Database Online Documentation Library:

For more information about using XML, see Oracle XML DB Developer's Guide.

For more information about medical imaging standards, see the documentation provided by the National Electrical Manufacturers Association (NEMA).

For reference information about Oracle Multimedia Java classes in Javadoc format, see the following Oracle API documentation (also known as Javadoc) in the Oracle Database Online Documentation Library:

For more information about Java, including information about Java Advanced Imaging (JAI), see the API documentation provided by Oracle.

Many of the examples in this guide are based on the database user PM and the tables MEDICAL_IMAGE_OBJ and MEDICAL_IMAGE_REL, which are created in the Product Media (PM) sample schema. See Oracle Database Sample Schemas for information about how these schemas are installed and how you can use them.

Conventions

The following text conventions are used in this guide:

Convention Meaning
boldface Boldface type indicates graphical user interface elements associated with an action, or terms defined in text or the glossary.
italic Italic type indicates book titles, emphasis, or placeholder variables for which you supply particular values.
monospace Monospace type indicates commands within a paragraph, URLs, code in examples, text that appears on the screen, or text that you enter.

Syntax Descriptions

Syntax descriptions are provided in this guide for various SQL, PL/SQL, or other command-line constructs in graphic form or Backus Naur Form (BNF). See Oracle Database SQL Reference for information about how to interpret these descriptions.